Storage

🇩🇪 Deutsche Version

Storage (for advanced players)

Note

New in 0.0.8. Needs the research “UTL: Storage” (after “UTL: Loading control”) and the map setting “Allow storage stations” (on by default).

A storage is a station that takes in and gives out – a buffer close to the consumers. Instead of every requester fetching from a provider far away, trains fill the storage now and then, and the requesters nearby are served from there.

Minimum and maximum

Pick the role Storage in the station window. The section Storage has up to eight goods, each with a Minimum and a Maximum:

Stock	What the storage does
below the minimum	it requests – up to the maximum, so it does not refill in many small trips
between minimum and maximum	it offers what is above the minimum
above the maximum	it offers what is above the minimum as well

What it offers counts like a normal provider: with the same amount the nearer station delivers, at the same distance a normal provider comes first. So a storage near the consumers wins over a provider far away – and if that provider is busy, the storage helps out.

Important

Minimum and maximum are the thresholds of a storage – the general supply and demand thresholds do not apply here.

Two storages never shove goods back and forth: one only offers what is above its minimum, the other only requests below its minimum.

Leftover cargo

“Accept leftover cargo” (on by default): trains with leftover cargo may drop it off here, like at a cleanup. Which goods is set in the cleanup section of the same window. Goods without limits are offered completely, but only as a fallback – normal providers go first.

Inserters in both directions

A storage has to load and unload at the same stop. The usual vanilla way, all on one side of the track, per wagon:

unloading inserter (wagon → chest) → transfer inserter (chest → chest) → loading inserter (chest → wagon)

Wire the job output of the stop (red wire) to the unloading and loading inserters and set their enable conditions:

Inserter	Condition
loading inserter	[UTL: train loading here] > 0
unloading inserter	[UTL: train loading here] = 0

The job output carries “UTL: train loading here” and “UTL: train unloading here” while a delivery train stands at the stop (see job output). Leftover cargo has no job, so with “= 0” it is unloaded as well. The transfer inserter always runs. Wire all chests (green) to the stop or combinator so the storage knows its stock.

The same setup works for a cleanup that gives back.

To watch

• Scenario “UTL storage”: a storage on a ring with two trains, a cleanup that gives back and four small example lines (two storages, a storage taking leftovers, cleanup levels side by side, a storage with two goods). A window explains each part.
• Tips & tricks: “Storage (advanced)”.